The invention relates to a process for producing (cigarette) packs of the hinge-lid-box type with cross-sectionally round or beveled upright pack edges—round edges or oblique edges—non-folded, planar blanks being pre-shaped with the aid of rounding or beveling tools in the region of the round edges or oblique edges which are to be produced and then being processed in the usual manner for producing the hinge-lid box in a packaging machine. The invention also relates to an apparatus for carrying out the process.
Hinge-lid boxes for cigarettes configured as round-edged packs (U.S. Pat. No. 4,753,383) or octagonal packs (U.S. Pat. No. 4,753,384) are becoming increasingly common. In order to obtain precisely shaped round edges or oblique edges during the production of this type of pack, in particular of the round-edged pack, with the help of a conventional packaging machine for hinge-lid boxes, it is known for the non-folded blanks to be subjected to pre-shaping before being introduced into the packaging machine, in that the pack edges concerned are pre-shaped with the aid of rounding or beveling tools and the blank is then introduced into the packaging machine (U.S. Pat. No. 5,549,537).
In the case of this known arrangement, individual blanks are subjected to this preliminary processing, in the region of a pack path leading to the packaging machine, during a standstill phase. This adversely affects the output capacity of the packaging machine.